Why the power of the federal government and its growing bureaucracies need to be trimmed

The first rule of any elected government in any nation that values its democratic freedoms is: To do no harm! Sadly, successive Australian governments have been ignoring this first basic rule of government while busily enacting policies which have more to do with socialist idealism than pragmatic and common sense solutions to those problems which tend to face any government at most times. Is it any wonder why we now have a federal bureaucracy, which is also copied by each individual state government, that is so large and encompasses so many diverse areas and which employs so many public servants, that the most pressing issue today within government is to keep the Bureaucrats who man them paid by using your tax dollars! And please remember, that no government produces any wealth of its own as ALL forms of government are reliant on what can be raised in the way of taxes in order to function.

The first Federal Government Ministry of 1901 had 8 portfolios (with 11 Ministers), the current Federal Government has 22 portfolios (with 30 Ministers). In just over 110 years the Federal Government has grown exponentially from a small government of what was then considered as more than adequate to fulfil its national duty with eight Ministries, to an almost threefold increase of 22 portfolios and 30 Ministers, the number of which is considered by those who man them as necessary for the running of the nation.[1] Really! So what has changed in 110 years that would justify such a huge increase in Federal Government? Ministries such as the Ministry of Climate Change and Sustainable Population as well as a number of other Ministries should never have been created in the first place. Also, please remember, that with every increase in a Ministry Portfolio, there is also a bureaucracy of public servants that has to be employed to run it! In other words, while there has been a huge growth of Government Portfolios over the last century there has also been a huge increase in the number of public servants running it. And while this article is really only concerned with the Federal Government, the states and territories that also have their own governments and bureaucracies should also be of concern to the thinking citizen because of how much their numbers have also expanded.

Up until a few decades ago every state was responsible for its own tax raising, education, health and infrastructure. The Federal Government now controls what was once a state’s responsibility and allocates money and policy directly to state governments. What is wrong with that you may ask? Well, the Federal Government’s role used to be the running of federal and not state issues, but over the last century has, through hook and by crook, usurped state’s rights to the point that the states now have little control in how they run the state and have to be represented at Premiers’ Conferences to ask for Federal government money which the Federal Government has stripped from the states. This has been allowed to become an absurd situation where the most populous state of New South Wales, which also raises the most taxes, now finds itself begging in Canberra to get its fair share of ‘Commonwealth Revenue’ while the lesser populated states like Tasmania, due to their low levels of population, receive far more ‘Commonwealth Revenue’ per head of population than those states are able to raise. If the Federal Government cut back on its unnecessary bureaucracies along with the states duplication of the same bureaucracies, and therefore cut back on taxes, then this situation of tax imbalance would not be such an issue.

Some examples of un-needed federal bureaucracies are: Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry; Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; Climate Change and Energy Efficiency; Innovation and Industry; Resources, Energy and Tourism – the functions of which should be able to be included within a broader Economy-Industry Department. Every time an issue is raised, even when it is an important issue, it should not require yet another government department; many of these issues could have been dealt with within existing departments. There are also others that duplicate state level bureaucracies, such as within the Department of Health and Ageing. Duplication of government bureaucracies should be avoided, not encouraged like the major parties have been doing. Neither side of the political establishment seems to remove any of these bureaucracies when they get in.

Our Federal Government has become a heavily centralised government. Anyone familiar how Central Governments tend to accumulate power and then dictate to the nation should be very wary of permitting our Federalist system of Federal/State governments – which under our Constitution were to be responsible for their own territory- to be co-opted by those who believe Central Government works best, and States rights make no sense. Also, anyone aware of their history should be aware that over-centralised governments, such as the failing British model is proving to be, become total failures, because their bureaucracies become so large that they become unwieldy – and any government that depends on them for the nation’s wellbeing becomes un-manageable!

Our Federal Government is also in bed with big business and corporations which now influence to an extent the direction that government takes. Anyone who has a limited knowledge of how an economy works for the benefit of its citizenry will realize that when government is influenced by the people with money, and who are in business to make more money, the outcome for the citizen will not be to the citizen’s advantage. Money is power in political circles, and those who control the money must be kept from exerting any influence over any government.

To the average Australian, the workings of government and the economy still remain a mystery. The only real mystery though is how a government that was placed into power in 1901, to run the Commonwealth of Australia while the states did their own thing, and has become in a little over 100 years a form of Centralized Government that now controls virtually everything, a form of government that would make Comrade Lenin proud. Do we blame successive runs of politicians who chose to fix what they could in office while they left the real mess created by those they replaced to those who would come after them? Do we blame the centralists and socialists who have an agenda to turn all Western democracies into more ‘controllable’ forms of Centralized government, incrementally, while obeying the overlording of United Nations rulings? (The same centralists and socialists seek to bring in more and more authoritarian or overbearing laws, act by act, so that most people don’t even notice their freedoms and rights being taken away from them.) Or do we blame ourselves, the voters, for being too trusting in those we have elected to office which then allowed us to take our eyes off the political ball, while those we trusted did what all of us one day will come to regret?

Whenever new laws and regulations are made, they require more government bureaucrats to enforce them, along with new bureaucratic departments, buildings, and infrastructure. With more and more rules to control our lives, issued from the politicians and government bureaucrats in their ivory towers, come more and more taxes to prop up the expanding bureaucracies required to put those rules into effect. Although those issuing the new rules presumably have good intentions, we are fast becoming a “nanny state” with rules to govern most aspects of our lives (compare this with the life our forebears had, even 50 years ago, free from too much overbearing government control and intrusion), and the fact is that many of these new rules are causing harm and angst to our farmers, small businesses, and our way of life.

A good government is a small government and political parties that are not influenced by big business or unions will become successful governments, providing they adhere to the first principle of good government: To do no harm!

Comments

Well alright, how do we influence this let alone stop it or god forbid change it? I am sick and tired of listening to people just whinge and not do anything. Every time somethining comes to the crunch majority hide burying heads in the sand hoping no one sees them. I am all for doing something of significance. We need numbers amd we need them to count. We need gutsy leader, yes, one with balls and common sense to unite us all small groups/parties out there and to actually do something? Why could not we unite with One Nation for example? People! Dont you all see? We are too quick to attack and criticise each other but when it comes to really important issues we scatter off like a bunch of frightened rats that just seen a cat? And 1 cat at that? Come on people. Either lets do something meaningful or just shut up and let this country go to hell becouse that is where we are all headed.

Someonewhocares…..Apart from One Nation being a shadow of its former self, the APP differs somewhat in policy and outlook. While the APP would welcome former One Nation members to sign up with the APP, the APP will not surrender its own sovereignity to another party. I do realise how frustrated you must feel about the current political situation which is letting us all down. Those who are APP members also feel frustrated and that is why they become members. While the government exerts some moral authority and the rule of law remains across the land, the political process must be followed in order to get our country back.

Sure Terry I agree.Let us know when you are ready maybe to take the lead and tell us how we can take our country back?I am sure you are an intelegent individual and follow what is going on in OUR country at present,how 100's of them illigals 3rd.worlders are being released in our comunities over night in the hope we wont notice?What are WE going to do about that?When will enough be enough?When we get another Cronulla?We dont want phisycal sacrifaces or wars.We need action NOW.So then,which/whose politics are we going to use to get our country back?Frustrated?Thats an understatement of how I feel.More like madly furious.I have to deal with these savages every day,forcefully,and there is a not 1 thing I can do to REALLY tell them how I feel about them.Although I do in little ways show my displeasure in having to even be in the same room as them.Surely people say if you dont like what you are doing leave.Trust me I would,wouldnt have to ask me twice.My biggest problem is where to next?Anywhere with out them?I dont bloody think so.So Terry,you tell me,how to get my country back and very soon.Ok.Please?Pretty please?Seriously,what is the big deal with One Nation?We have the same goals ultimately,why does it matter hiw we achieve them.If we dont do something very soon,we are a minority in a minority and that speaks volumes about our chances of achieving something on our own.Action speaks louder then words.The time is past due.I am here,supporting no matter what we decide and will be.always standing by on ready.

the racial discrimination act and the ideas behind afirmative action are both repugnent and discrimanatory in their very existance. I for one have no time for either and will say whatever i want.This atrocious, spineless, lilly livered,traitorous government we have need to go and the sooner the better. We need to take back our country and make it the prosperous and safe land it once was. If this means upsetting all the lefty do gooders then tough.Australia for australians, if your here to try and change our laws , system of government or dont want to fit in then you dont belong here. Its just that simple.

Affirmative action is the worst policy. I have experienced it first hand and have seen that all an organisation is doing are empowering lazy, entitled individuals who feel no responsibility to sacrifice to better themselves because of their ethnicity.

Years ago I worked with a Maori women who'd been in this county for five minutes and had received a job as a trainee Technical Writer. She had no education and was actually proud of the fact that she had never read a book from cover to cover. Qualifications that I"d spent my own time and money gaining she got in company time on company money – and gloated openly about it.

My main grievance with this person was that she was like a black cloud of hate walking into the office each day and caused a huge amount of division and destroyed any harmony we may have had in our little multicultural wonderland. One of the white managers kept trying to get her to do a trainee managers course and make her someone to manage people like me. It was a joke.

This person wasn't managerial material. She had attacked me from day one and they wanted this uneducated, aggressive narcissist to manager my position eventually. If I ever tried to speak with it about people I got to feel as if I was jealous rather than concerned about my wellbeing around this person and depressed at the fact I'd worked hard for my job but was shoved aside because I was a hated anglo.

Affirmative action is a bad way to go. I will never support it. It also sent this Maori narcissist the wrong message, that you don't have to work to achieve, that companies give you your skills rather than employing you for your skills – so she endlessly felt ripped off that no company had done this for her before.

And another thing about the attack on our Freedom of Speech. Is the government going to be monitoring blogs and newspapers written in other languages, such as Arabic and Chinese to ensure that the comply with the Racial Discrimination Act 18C, and ensure they are complying with the recommendations in the Finkelstein review, or is this something that is only going to be imposed on English language newspapers, blogs, twitters?

Obviously you do not realize what is going on re google+ and facebook. Both of these atrocities of social media are collecting and distributing any and all of our personal information plus any logical intuitive gleanings of said info to whoever whomever and whose-ever wants it for FREE – in the case of Government.

I do not know how you people think but i for one am extremely upset by it.

My private life is mine. its nobody's business except mine.

Anybody organizing rallies demo's etc that stick up for a citizens rights can count me in.

Kuta Kid – I'm a bit lost with the point you are making. I'm talking about the need to have complete Freedom of Speech.

I'm more about helping to get the message out there.

My point above is that there are a lot of foreign language media in Australia (ethnic newspapers, radio stations, Satellite TV and no doubt blogs), and are they going to be forced to comply with our racial discrimination act 18C and the recommendations in the Finkelstein Review.

I don't speak any foreign languages and don't know about the content in our ethnic media but suspect like a lot of things there are double standards – one set of strict rules for the mainstream English speaking white population and another more flexible set of rules for the ethnic community.

We already have evidence in mosques sermons that are held in Arabic, very contentious and radical things are said (think uncovered meat and incitement to rape non-muslim women).

Ray Finkelstein is a left-winger. He even wants to put a restriction of opponents of climate change. This is ridiculous because it denies that there is any other side to a debate or concept and stipulates that everyone must be on the same side.

Folks, our freedom of speech is about to be repressed further. The Fincklelstein Review was released yesterday and this control our media and blogs even further. Please pay attention to it and learn the implications for how it will restrict our freedom of speech.

Freedom of Speech is designed to prevent people from being persecuted if they offend tyrants by telling the truth.

The Institute of Public Affairs wants to repeal section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.